The Warrior Victorious

8

I awoke to find that I’d been pulled against a large male body, two warm lips kissing my face and neck. I felt confused but knew I didn’t want to be kissed and held like that, knew I just wanted to be left alone the way I’d been alone all my life. I moved against the arms that held me as I began to struggle, but the kissing suddenly turned into very soft words.

“Stop trying to push me away,” Kel-Ten whispered, so low there was almost no sound to his speaking. “I’m going to key you awake now, and I need a reason for being this close.”

It came to me with a heart-thumping shock that that was it, the time Iii been waiting for, the time I’d been afraid would never come. What had happened the night before had also come back to me, but that was less important than what was about to happen, a good deal less important. I quickly stopped struggling and put my arms around Kel-Ten, as though I had just realized who he was and didn’t want to get away from him, and he made a sound of satisfaction and then spoke a word. The word registered in my mind without my ears being able to hear it, a word I didn’t know and would never have been able to repeat, but because of it I was suddenly—

Alive.

Truly alive and whole again.

I could feel everything there was to feel in that place, the faint, distant murmur of very many minds, some active, some not, some below and some outside, beyond the walls of the buildings we were in. I took a very deep breath after ages of suffocation, then finally paid attention to the man in whose arms I lay. His mind was bright and strong, clearly active rather than latent, but I had the distinct impression I’d seen stronger minds somewhere, in some place I couldn’t quite remember. I could also feel the growling desire in his mind, a desire that didn’t seem totally natural, and he was balancing between the desire and a curiosity tinged with apprehension. His mind poked at mine in the same way his tongue tickled my ear, and I could feel that he was somewhat disappointed.

“You’re not as strong as I’d hoped you’d be,” he breathed, beginning to move his hands around on my body. “All we can do is get you started on the exercises, and try to make them do you some good. What about that shield you mentioned yesterday?”

His saying I wasn’t very strong startled me, but then I realized he was experiencing my mind through the curtain over it, not even knowing the curtain was there. I was able to remember about the curtain then, knowing it had formed because of my need for it, because of my worry that Kel-Ten might be jealous of a mind stronger than his. I was about to replace it with my shield, when I suddenly realized I had two shields to choose from, one the small, strong shield only I could get around, and the other the light shield I’d developed first that had so many holes in it. It came to me that an impervious shield might attract unwanted attention of its own, and also that a shield with holes would be handy for me to look out through. I’d had enough of being locked away in the dark, and wanted no more of it.

“How’s that?” I murmured as I kissed his face, allowing the light bubble-shield to surround my mind. Once it was there I found that I could look through it with just a little effort, but the startlement in Kel-Ten’s mind said he couldn’t do the same.

“Absolutely perfect,” he murmured back, almost distracted. “I can’t reach you at all. How do you do it?”

“I don’t know,” I lied in a whisper, immediately deciding that was the smartest tack to take. “One day it just happened. No one will know?”

“Um um,” he grunted, a satisfaction to the sound, and then he dropped the dangerous discussion and began to let the desire in his mind take over. He was going to complete what he’d begun and not only to make it look right, not only to be sure no one grew suspicious. His body constantly tore at his mind with need, sometimes easing up on him but never for long, never leaving him entirely free unless he pushed himself to the absolute end and deep into exhaustion. It was the drug that made him feel like that, the drug they’d been feeding him so long, but although he had my pity I couldn’t simply let him do what he had to. I had been hurt too badly the night before, and there was no longer a reason to accept what I didn’t want.

I couldn’t have fought him off if I’d tried, but even if I could have that would have brought its own consequences. All actions and consequences had to be his, whatever happened his fault rather than mine. There’s a certain point of desire we all work up to in sex, a point that must be reached before anything more than touching and kissing can be accomplished, most especially on the part of the male half of the effort. Kel-Ten had already reached that point just as he always did, but that was the results of the drug working on him, not of his own desire. I touched the man holding me with a shadow of the urge to procrastinate, giving him a reason for continuing on as he was doing rather than going on to other, more undesirable undertakings, and was relieved when he followed the urge without realizing it wasn’t his own. Kel-Ten hadn’t felt me in his mind, and that meant I could look at what the drug was doing to him a little more closely.

It usually takes a while to see—or guess at-what it is that’s supporting a particular emotion, but when drugs are involved the effort is minimal. I knew what was feeding Kel-Ten’s need to use me, and only had to see just how it was doing that. Probing into the growling roar of his thoughts was difficult and not terribly comfortable, but the effort quickly turned out to be worth it. There seemed to be a single point of compulsion feeding everything else, and if that could be blocked off—

“I’m thinking about how you looked last night, sweet thing,” Kel-Ten murmured to me, his hands everywhere, his desire spreading like a flame through his mind. “Remember what I said about everyone else wanting you, but me being the only one who would have you? It’s just about that time.”

I could feel his thoughts and desires beginning to break through the urge to put things off that I’d touched him with, but I couldn’t afford to let that happen. I felt my own urge when he stirred on the bed beside me, the urge to panic, but if I did panic I would lose all control over my abilities and would be helpless to stop him. Realizing that made the rising fear inside me worse instead of better, turning my muscles weak with anticipation of what the pain would be like—and then something odd happened. All sense of fear disappeared under the shower of cool calm that spread quickly through my mind, and I was able to strengthen the need to wait in Kel-Ten’s mind, and then begin to construct a block for the compulsion ruling him. It was almost as though I simply watched while someone else did the work, and then I remembered about having found a tool to help me control my emotions when it was really necessary. I’d needed the tool for-something, somewhere—and now had it available for the here and now. I couldn’t remember why I’d needed it, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use it.

Setting up the block seemed strange, as though I’d never done something like that before, but it wasn’t terribly complex and didn’t take very long. Kel-Ten continued to kiss me and touch me, unaware of what was being done to him, his mind straining unconsciously against the hold I had on it. He wanted to get on with doing what he had to, wanted it-wanted it—then suddenly wanted it less. The urgings of the drug were being shunted past the center of his desire by the block, freeing him from the constant, driving need he’d been in the grip of so long. What the mind believes it feels is what the body feels, and Kel-Ten’s mind was beginning to feel that he didn’t want me after all. Too much of anything can sour a normal human being on it, and the man who held me had had too much for far too long. His feelings slowly retreated away from the point where he could do anything but touch and kiss, which eventually made him raise his head to look at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, some of the confusion and embarrassment he felt showing in his expression. “It looks like I may have extended myself a little too far yesterday, and now I can’t-quite get into the mood. I’m afraid we’re going to have to get back to this later.”

Instead of waiting to find out how I felt about that, he simply rolled away, then got out of the bed. If I’d needed relief he could have given it to me without being more than marginally involved, but that wasn’t the way things were done around there. If he’d gotten me hot, so much the better; by the time he was back to being interested, it would simply be a bonus for him.

“Let’s not forget what we’re supposed to be doing now, sweet thing,” he said as he stretched hard, the words lazy and his attention elsewhere. “While Kel-Ten is under the shower, where does pretty sweet thing wait for him?”

He turned back to look at me with the question, a faint grin on his face, a satisfaction in his mind that he could give me embarrassment to partially offset his own. I gave him the glare he was expecting before acknowledging my helplessness by crawling to the foot of the bed and lying there the way he wanted me to, and he laughed softly as he came over and patted me on the head.

“Now that’s a good sweet thing,” he said in icky-smooth tones, really enjoying himself. “Belly down and watching the door is the way I want her. I’ll be back in just a little while.”

I kept my eyes on him until he’d strolled out of the room, still pretending to be annoyed, in reality feeling ten times the satisfaction he did. The emotionless calm had left me as soon as I’d finished doing what needed to be done, and the best part of it all was that Kel-Ten had no idea he was acting to the urging of someone else. There had to be quite a lot I’d be able to do with that, but before I even thought about it there was something else of higher priority that needed seeing to. Moving around on the bed had shown me how much pain was left from what had been done to me the night before, which meant it was time to work with pain control. There were decisions I would have to make that day, and they would be hard enough without distractions.

By the time I heard Kel-Ten coming back, there was only a faint soreness from the way I’d been savaged. I hadn’t remembered until I’d started that I’d gotten better at pain control too, and after all the ugly shocks I’d had, a pleasant surprise was a nice change. I watched the man walk to his closet and begin taking out things to wear, wishing I hadn’t decided against “asking” him to let me have a bath. I didn’t just want a bath I needed one, but I couldn’t afford to suddenly have everything going to my advantage and comfort, even if outwardly it seemed to be no one’s decision but Kel-Ten’s. The people in that place had to be used to seeing the results of mental manipulation, and if they were given the least reason to believe the First Prime was being twisted around, the game would be up and my neck would be in a noose. I had no doubt that they would be very interested in finding out about what I’d learned to do, which meant bath time would have to be put off until it really was Kel-Ten’s idea.

After dressing in a slightly different short outfit of gold, my partner in deception came over to the bed with something for me to wear, in point of fact the same something I’d worn the day before. It had been cleaned by the bedroom wall unit and was therefore fresh and ready, and Kel-Ten got a lot of amusement out of seeing me put it on again even though I so clearly didn’t want to. Once again it was a matter of wearing the torn shirt or wearing nothing, a choice I didn’t have to be reminded of, a choice I was still limited to even though I was awake. All I could do was follow a chuckling Kel-Ten into his kitchen with my jaw clamped tightly shut, knowing my expression was the reason he was chuckling.

I would have enjoyed being able to think during breakfast, trying to decide on a time and a way to tell my partner we would not have to wait to make our escape after all-among other things—but Kel-Ten had shifted into too good a mood. For the first time in a very long while he wasn’t being tormented by the demands of his body, even though he didn’t really understand why he felt so good, he apparently decided to enjoy the time by tormenting someone else. The breakfast delivered to me was different from the one of the day before in that it was richer, showing that the eyes-in-charge still weren’t pleased with my caloric intake, and that meant to Kel-Ten that he could force some of his own breakfast on me without worrying about being reprimanded. I made short but nasty comments to him while he stuffed me almost to the exploding point, and finally managed to get him to stop by saying I wasn’t feeling well at all. If he got me sick he knew they would bother him about it, but he’d had such a good time he was still chuckling when we left the apartment.

We left the drop at the same level we had the day before, but although the crowds of men were the same the experience was more of a first encounter, at least for me. Even before the drop door opened I could feel their minds, every one of them actively alive, some calm and calmly controlled, some roiling at one level or another of agitation. As Kel-Ten and I left the drop and lift area and entered their midst, the vast majority of them seemed to draw back mentally even though physically they didn’t move. They still stood in their small groups, engaged in conversations, but they knew Kel-Ten was there and they gave him what amounted to a clear mental aisle. The expression never changed on the face of the man I walked beside, but his mind smiled with satisfaction over the deference paid him, a deference that was his due. I wondered how he could feel that way with all the resentment and hatred muted behind those withdrawals, and then I spent some time wondering if he could sense it. None of the minds were shielded, but they seemed to have learned to do their feeling on two separate levels. The upper levels were filled with random thoughts and properly deferential feelings, but the lower levels—

We stopped in front of the large glass board again and Kel-Ten began studying it, giving me the opportunity to look casually around. Most if not all of the men there seemed to know who I was—or, more to the point, what I was—and to a small extent the First Prime had been right about their feelings. A large number of them resented my being there, but of that number only a few were actually “afraid” of a woman who wasn’t conditioned into adoring them. The rest were more outraged over the presence of a lesser being, feeling that their sacred precincts were being invaded by someone who didn’t and would never belong. They were superior, and knew it without doubt because they’d been told they were.

Of the ones who were jealous of Kel-Ten’s possession of me, again only a few were jealous because they considered me more attractive than the women they had access to. The rest saw me as a symbol, one of the benefits of Kel-Ten’s position, a benefit they were burning to enjoy as a foretaste of that very position. They were all determined to work very hard until they became First Prime, and no more than a handful doubted they would one day make it.

I stirred where I stood beside Kel-Ten, certain I’d interpreted all those emotions around me correctly, and because of that felt rather upset. Dedication to a particular goal is all fine and well, but those men weren’t dedicated, they were obsessed. Or conditioned, which isn’t exactly the same thing. There was a burning need inside each of them to prove themselves, matching a similar need in Kel-Ten to improve on what he’d already accomplished. My partner in conspiracy thought he wanted to escape; was that absolutely true, or simply an outlet the conditioning was allowing him to keep him from exploding into uselessness? Had he put off the time of our leaving because he really thought a wait was necessary—or because he’d never actually do what he was being allowed to dream about? If I told him I was ready to go and no further delay would be necessary, would he laugh with delight and get us started, simply be unable to hear me, turn me off and send me back to the low dormitory, what? I didn’t go so far as to turn to stare at him, but couldn’t help noticing that the hall we stood in had suddenly became a good deal chillier.

“Looks like I have a heavier schedule today than I did yesterday,” Kel-Ten said, drawing me away from increasingly depressing thoughts. “Two intro classes for new arrivals from low, five rings to cover with another two as standby possibilities, and a formal challenge.

Which doesn’t even count my regular classes. I’ve had days like this before, and I hate to tell you how wiped out I’ll be by tonight. I’m surprised Ank-Soh isn’t here waiting, all ready to give me a hand with looking after you. ”

He chuckled as he made the observation, putting an arm around me to hug me, but there wasn’t much in the way of amusement inside him. I could feel a heavy sense of worry, tinged faintly with fear, and only then realized what he was worrying about. The women he was supposed to take care of, when he’d mentioned them the fear had appearedbecause he was still being protected by my block! His body didn’t even want one woman, not to mention five for certain and maybe even seven, and the First Prime was wondering if he would be able to handle it.

I reached over to him gently with my mind, touched the block to make it dissolve, then watched the rate at which the drugs began affecting him again. He was able to feel it a good deal sooner than he’d stopped feeling it, leading me to believe they’d increased his dosage because of the sort of schedule they’d given him. I stood with his arm around me as he continued to look at the board, waiting for his reaction to being released, really afraid he’d start wondering what was going on, but it didn’t happen. His mind suddenly surged with elation as he knew himself able again, but there wasn’t the least sign of suspicion, most certainly not of me. He didn’t seem used to questioning what happened to him, and rather than making me feel better, the realization drove me deeper into worry of my own.

I had another couple minutes of quiet to use for a stern inner talk with myself about the stupidity of having forgotten about the block, but I didn’t have to belabor the point. I could have had real trouble by letting it slip my mind, and I had already sworn to be careful not to do the same again. I’d also had the time to add my curiosity to Kel-Ten’s about where Ank-Soh was, but not because I missed the other Prime. I couldn’t very well make Ank-Soh not want me after everything he’d said the day before, but I thought it might be possible to convince him his own schedule was too heavy to fit me in. It was a risk I’d been wondering if it would be smart to take-no matter how I felt about it emotionally—and his not showing up was a bigger break than I’d been expecting. Wherever the other Prime was, I couldn’t help hoping fervently that he stayed there.

My thinking time was ended by the sound of the chime that officially started the day, and once again my hand was taken in Kel-Ten’s as he set off to his first class. When we got to the room I was put in the back corner the way I’d been the day before, but once the class started I got a surprise I hadn’t been expecting. Rather than having it be the relaxing class of the day before, it turned out to be a mental exercise class filled mostly with beginners. The black-clad instructor welcomed six of the fifteen men to their new level, made sure they knew the First Prime was there and watching them, then began them on their exercises. He called out an emotion and they all projected it together, then he had them do the same only one at a time.

Right from the start I’d had to be very careful of my expression, making sure I gave the impression of being as bored as I’d been the day before. I sat in the corner leaning up against the righthand wall, my legs again bent to the left, my hand now and then patting a yawn, my mind busily taking in everything I was being shown. Kel-Ten was again at the back of the group, and when he’d joined in the general broadcasting he’d been careful to use only a part of his strength. With the others it didn’t matter; only a small portion of their weakly sloppy projections were reaching the trainer, and I thought I knew why. They had the control we were all taught for closeup work, but none of them was really used to projecting at a distance. They could just reach the trainer where he stood, his mind braced against what was coming at him, and some of them were even letting their efforts spread in my direction.

The trainer himself was a surprise, and although I looked at him closely with my mind, I made sure not to touch him. The man wasn’t a Prime but he was an empath, and someone had taught him how to recognize what was coming at him without letting it affect him. His braced mind in effect slid the emotions past him once he knew what they were, just as though he held up something mental to cause that sliding. It was an interesting technique, requiring nothing of the effort fighting off the projections would have demanded, something I would have had to do in his place.

Again, even with individual efforts the class didn’t last very long, and by the time it was over I understood that the class I’d seen with the targets would be what the men in that class would graduate to once they had control and strength. The man in black ended the class with another sort of competitive comment about Kel-Ten, and while everyone was leaving spent some time talking to the First Prime. I could feel Kel-Ten purring from what was being said to him, most likely the usual stroking he was given, and then the purring stopped in order to let him pay closer attention to what he was being told. His mind registered faint surprise and an odd mixture of satisfaction and regret, and then he left the trainer to come over to my corner. For some reason I felt I ought to be very curious about what he’d been told, and came that close to asking straight out as I got to my feet. Luckily I was able to bite my tongue before the giant size of it let Kel-Ten know I’d been able to follow what was going on at that range, but didn’t have to waste time trying to think of a way to trick the information out of him. As soon as he put his arm around me, he came right out with exactly what I’d wanted to know.

“I just found out why Ank-Soh wasn’t waiting at the schedule board to try taking you over for the day,” he said, beginning to lead me out of the room. “He’d originally been scheduled to be in this class too, to work with me giving the former lows a demonstration, but at the last minute they canceled him so the trainer canceled the demo. What he was told is that Ank-Soh suddenly got very sick after eating breakfast this morning and they think it was food poisoning of some kind. Right now they’re busy sample-checking all the dishes in the main facility chef, especially what Ank-Soh ate. He’s not going to be answering challenges for a few days, or covering rings, or attending classes.”

“Or asking about standing in for somebody with a heavy schedule,” I added, wondering why the information was giving me such a funny feeling. It was relieving to know I would not have to take the risk of manipulating him, but there was something-“He must have been the only one to be affected, or they’d know if it was one specific dish or an entire line of meals. That’s really strange, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something like that happening in. a carefully run establishment. Does it happen here very often?”

“Only once before that I heard of, nearly five years ago,” Kel-Ten answered with a shrug, leading me up the corridor in a new direction. “It turned out to be an isolated case, only that one dish being affected, and the man, a rather high Prime, nearly died. He was never quite right after that, and lost his position on the very first challenge.”

His face briefly went blank then, showing me- again that he wasn’t permitted to think about what happened to high Primes who lost, and when the blankness faded the subject was over with and closed. We were simply walking along the corridor going somewhere, saying nothing at the moment, no unanswered questions hanging in the air. Rather than shivering I just felt sick, and took my own opportunity to find something else to talk about.

“Your having a practice class instead of the relaxing class surprised me,” I said, making sure my voice was steady and unconcerned. “Are they just trying to confuse you, or don’t you ever follow the same program every day?”

“If I had to do the same thing every day, I’d be crazy in no time,” he answered with a snort of faint ridicule, glancing down at me. “I might have two days that are almost the same, but never more than two and never exactly alike. Today I get to do heavy ex in the afternoon with breathing ex after it, and they’ve thrown in some light ex for now. I won’t be working up too heavy a sweat, not with two of my rings waiting to be taken to my apartment, and after that are more practice classes. If you’re a good girl I may let you into the bedroom for your own turn before we go on to the classes, but only if you come up with a really pretty please. I’ve got you around to break up the boredom, after all, and if you like you can even look at it as practicing before we get to the real thing. ”

He grinned as his arm tightened around me, and then we were turning into a room that was a smaller version of that physical exercise room. I was glad getting to the room kept me from commenting, but that was just about the only thing I was glad about. The room held two fully uniformed Secs and one who wore a short outfit of white, and after I’d been left in charge of one of the uniformed ones, Kel-Ten and half a dozen other Primes jogged out of the building behind the one with short clothes. I ignored the grinning inspection I was getting from the one in whose charge I’d been left and sat down on the floor, then tried to understand what was going on inside my head.

For some reason I didn’t understand at all, it felt as though a heavy alarm was going off in my mind, insisting on so much of my attention that I couldn’t pick up the emotions around me without putting effort into it. I couldn’t remember ever having experienced something like that before and it bothered me, so much so that I leaned back against the wall with a hand in my hair, trying to force myself to understand. I had the definite impression that something was terribly wrong, and that if I didn’t figure out what the something was fast, I might as well not bother. Maybe starting from the beginning, when I’d first felt the feeling, would help to clear away the murk.

The beginning wasn’t very far away, only a matter of a minute or two, just before Kel-Ten and I had reached the room. It had been about the time he’d told me wed be practicing for the real thing, a comment that had upset me, but certainly not nearly as much as the first time the subject had come up. I’d have to be there for Kel-Ten to be able to “cover” me, and if things went my way even a little, that would never happen. No, it wasn’t the practicing or even the covering that had started it, it had to be something else, something said at just about the same time

The breath caught in my throat as I straightened away from the wall, and I found it impossible to keep myself from shuddering. Kel-Ten had said his rings would be “brought to his apartment,” and that was the phrase that had done it. I suddenly knew beyond all doubt that it would be the Sec Adjin who brought them, and once again Kel-Ten would be occupied while I wasn’t. He had a really heavy schedule that day, so heavy he’d never be able to pay more than token attention to me, and the man who would have “looked after me” during that time had suddenly come down sick that very morning. Accidentally sick!

I put a hand to my middle as I felt worse than Ank-Soh possibly could, wasting not a single moment trying to tell myself I was imagining things. In a place like that, where everything was so carefully controlled, someone who wanted to do his own controlling would have very little trouble slipping his machinations in between those of everyone else’s, especially if he was one whose job it was to guard it all. The null Adjin wanted me again, and even if I didn’t know why his interest was so high, that didn’t make it untrue—or avoidable. My being awake meant nothing when it came to a null; I couldn’t touch him any more than any of the others could, and if I panicked and asked Kel-Ten to intercede for me he could very well end up like that high Prime he’d mentioned, the one who had nearly died and afterward was never the same. If I learned that the Sec was responsible for that as well, it would hardly come as a surprise.

To hell with surprises, what was I going to do? I sat bent over with my hand to my mouth, trying to keep the terror inside, trying to think of something to escape what was coming. I hadn’t been able to face the null even before he’d hurt me; right then the thought of trying to cope with him made me want to run and run and run and

“Are you all right, girl?” a voice suddenly asked, a properly dutiful concern behind the words. It took me a minute to understand it was the Sec in whose charge I’d been left who was talking, the man leaning down a little trying to get a better look at me. Since I undoubtedly looked as pale as I felt, his frown deepened, and then he said, “Maybe you ought to be checked over by someone in Medical. We already have a Prime down sick, and there’s no sense in taking any chances.”

I instantly panicked at the thought of being taken to the man in Medical whose guard was Adjin, but just before I could babble out a refusal a different thought came to me. If I could get myself to the women’s area and the female doctor I’d seen when I first got there, maybe something could be done to protect me. Male Sees weren’t allowed in the women’s areas, Mera had told me, and although it felt like ages since I’d heard it I immediately got to work on the only out I had.

“Yes, please, I do need to go to Medical,” I said weakly as I rocked back and forth a little, but there was nothing weak about the total agreement I fed him. The man was a Sec but not a null, a bit of luck I didn’t mind taking full advantage of. “Cataran Olden is the doctor I want to see, back in the women’s section.”

“Cataran Olden it is,” he answered with a calm nod, reaching down to help me to my feet. “I’ll take you as far as I can go, then turn you over to someone else. Can you make it?”

Obviously I didn’t look all that steady to him, but I was so desperate to get out of the men’s section I would have crawled if I’d had to. I nodded to show I was well enough to walk wherever necessary, fidgeted only on the inside when he stopped to tell the other Sec where he was taking me, and then we were leaving the room.

The fear didn’t start loosening its hold until we reached the low dining room, finding it empty of all obstructions to our crossing it. On the other side of the dining room was a short corridor, and beyond the corridor was the area the null would not be able to reach me in. The Sec holding my arm was moving faster than he had to begin with, the faint urgency I’d brushed him with taking care of the need I’d felt so desperately. It had only just been within the realm of possibility that the null Adjin would appear suddenly to end my escape attempt, but it hadn’t been unlikely at all that Kel-Ten would get back from his jogging to do the exact same thing. He would certainly have made difficulty over my being taken back to the women’s area, and although I could have changed his mind easily enough, doing it would just have added to my problems.

Problems. Mountains ten miles high that needed to be climbed was more like it, hard, cold mountains I was tackling barefoot and practically naked. We had crossed almost half the dining room when my mind refused to let me avoid the major question any longer, the question of what I would do once I got to Cataran Olden. I could tell her I was terrified to go back to the men’s area, could even tell her why, but what good would it do me? She wasn’t in charge of anything but examining people, and had as much as said no one listened to her any more than they did to me. Even if she screamed and demanded that I be left alone and in the women’s area, would that stop one of the low Primes from claiming me for any night he cared to? It sure as hell would be useless if Kel-Ten demanded me back, most especially in view of the new experiment I was supposed to be a part of. No, going to Cataran Olden would only prove to be a temporary escape, and even wasting my breath on that Serdin man wouldn’t

I almost gasped as the answer suddenly came to me, and I knew I had to be looking pale again. I’d said it over and over, the only thing I could do, but my attention had kept shying away from it, as though totally incapable of facing that sort of truth. And I’d been wondering and worrying about how Kel-Ten would respond

I had to escape, and I had to do it right then.

“Just take it easy, we’re almost there,” the Sec holding my arm told me, apparently becoming aware of the way I’d begun trembling. “They’ll find out what’s wrong with you and they’ll fix it fast, and then you’ll be feeling fine again. Just hold on a little longer.”

He increased his pace a bit, anxious to get me turned over to someone else before I passed out or died, I think, but he hadn’t the least idea of the meaning of the word anxious. Bad enough was the fact that I would have to try getting out of that place alone, without any idea of where I was going or what I’d be doing if I did get out. Far worse was the fact that I would at the same time be deserting the man who had made my escape possible, the one whose desperate urge to be free had started the whole thing in the first place. If I could have stopped and gone back for him I would have, but even if I did go back there was no guarantee he would be able to make the try with me. He was at least partially conditioned, and without knowing how far that partial extended meant I couldn’t take the chance he would ruin everything without even knowing he was doing it. No, all I could do was continue on alone, promising both of us that if there was any chance of coming back to help him get out, I’d do it.

If I didn’t die of heart failure first. No more than minutes earlier I’d been deathly afraid I would never make it to the swinging doors leading to the women’s dormitory room, but when the Sec pushed through one of them, helping me along with him, I almost hung back. When the thought of going on is just as terrifying as the thought of retreating, you most often find yourself in the position of wanting to stand absolutely still, moving not an inch in any direction. At that point in time I didn’t have the option of standing still, a truth I hated but couldn’t do anything to change. The male Sec called a female Sec over, explained to her that I was sick and was to be taken to Cataran Olden in Medical, and all I could do was let her take my arm and begin leading me across the crowded floor.

I was too busy trying to find frantic plans to make to notice the trip over to Medical, but suddenly there were quite a few women in smocks around me, all of them apparently waiting on line for attention. Most of them seemed to have no idea they were doing something as boring as waiting on line, and even worse than that none of them laughed at the short, torn shirt I was still wearing. It made me ill to know I would have preferred it if they had laughed, and very happily I wasn’t left to stand around with them. I was taken directly down the hall to one particular door, the Sec holding my arm waved a hand in front of it, and then the door was being opened and I was taken inside.

Cataran Olden looked up when we entered, her mind tired, her expression neutral, but when she saw me she started, her thoughts registering concerned surprise. It was clear she hadn’t expected to see me there, and she put aside the papers shed been reading and moved away from the wall shed been standing near.

“What’s wrong?” she asked the Sec who still had a hand around my arm. “It’s too soon for her next checkup, so why is she here?”

“She was brought in from the men’s area, and you’re the one I was told to take her to,” the Sec answered, her shrug mostly referring to her lack of knowledge. “They’re having a food poisoning problem over there today, I hear, and the guard who brought her thought she ought to be looked over. Do you want me to wait in here?”

“No, outside if you please,” the brown-haired woman answered with a faint frown, her eyes already examining me. She put a hand to my shoulder and began leading me farther into the room as the Sec turned me loose and left; I waited only until I heard the door close, and then I gently but firmly brushed her hand away.

“I don’t have food poisoning,” I said, quickly calming her automatic protest. “What I do have is a problem, and I need your help with it. Are you still willing to help?”

“If there’s anything I can do,” she answered, more hesitant and unsure on the inside than she let the words come out. “You know what I have absolutely no control over; if it’s something other than that, I’ll do my best.”

I nodded as I returned her stare, then began telling her what had happened to me since the last time wed met. I wasn’t talking for any purpose other than to kill time, time I desperately needed to decide what to do. They say stampedes are hard to stop, but when it’s one single female Prime who’s doing the stampeding, the saying doesn’t necessarily hold true. If I could think of something else to do other than panic and run, I’d certainly find myself better off when I finally did get around to escaping. And if I had enough time, I also ought to be able to find out if Kel-Ten was really able to go with me. Two against the odds felt like a much better idea to me, so I pondered my options as I spoke and then tried to find out if there were any I hadn’t yet considered.

“So you can see why I don’t want to take the chance of his coming after me again,” I finished up to a silently listening Cataran Olden, having edited the story just a little to eliminate what could easily be considered nothing but paranoia. “He’s a Sec, one of those in charge, and he told me he would come to hurt me again. When Kel-Ten told me two of his rings were going to be brought to his apartment right after he came back from jogging, all I could think about was what I would do if he was the one who brought them. Not being able to think of anything made me so sick they thought there was something wrong with me, and somehow I managed to talk them into bringing me here. That man Serdin told me to come and see him if I had any problems, but I wasn’t sure if he would consider this a real problem. He isn’t female, so he couldn’t know how I- Will talking to him do any good, or just make things worse?”

The woman stood leaning against one wall of the examining room with her back, her head down, her arms folded, and for a moment she didn’t move or speak. I could feel that her mind wasn’t anywhere near as quiet and unmoving, and when she raised her head to look at me there was no smile inside to match the one on her face.

“I really must learn not to offer help before finding out what the difficulty is,” she said, clearly forcing herself to meet my eyes. “The problem you have is twofold, and is most easily described as follows: the man who hurt you is not just a Sec, he’s a null, and considering how important nulls are around here, he pulls more weight than most would believe. Serdin told you everyone wanted you to be happy here, but there are alternate methods of making you happy if your natural happiness interferes with the happiness of someone who has pull. Frankly, what I think will happen is that Serdin will simply make a note to be sure the null stops visiting you soon enough before your fertile period to avoid any complications, and in the interim will use an alternate method to make you happy, say through injections or in your food. If you don’t talk to him and let him know what needs to be done, all you’ll have to look forward to is suffering, so I think it’s clear you have very little choice.”

She fell silent then and just stared at me, her selfhatred so strong I could almost feel it without reaching through my shield. Shed told me the truth for my sake, to keep any false hopes from rising, but would have been much happier if she could have pretended she was able to do something to give me real help. It’s extremely painful to admit you’re helpless in a situation where you don’t want to be, a contention I happened to know personally as the truth. Shed been right when she said I had no choice, and had been wrong only in believing she knew what that no choice was.

“So I get to visit Serdin again after all,” I muttered, using one hand to rub at my forehead as I tried to put my thoughts in order. “That might be the best move in any case, considering how important a man he is. And he is important, isn’t he, even though he isn’t a null?”

“Yes he’s important, and no he isn’t a null,” she answered with a frown, replying to both of my questions without noticing the faint urge to speak freely I’d brushed her with. “Terry, you’re not thinking about trying to-influence-Serdin, are you? They have women brought in for men in special positions like his, women who are just as special for the purpose they serve. You can’t . . .”

“I can’t not see him, and I can’t not try,” I interrupted, gesturing with one hand while soothing her agitation again. “If I can make him understand how badly I need his help, he may make more of an effort than he would normally. Will you at least wish me luck?”

I held my arms out to her, asking to be hugged, and the flare of compassion inside her needed only a little help from me before sending her toward me to give that hug. When my lips were right next to her ear I whispered to her, my mind working along with the words, my heart pounding just a little as I realized I was committing myself with no turning back. I intended trying to influence Serdin, all right, but not the way Cataran Olden thought, and I didn’t want anyone hearing the instructions I gave to the woman doctor and begin wondering. I needed something to help Serdin’s efforts, and Cataran Olden was just the one to give it to me.

“Say, since you’re going to Serdin, I wonder if you would do me a favor?” the woman said when I let her let the embrace end, her words completely natural as she stepped back from me. “I have something he should have, and if you take it I won’t have to send someone to make a special trip.”

“I don’t mind helping,” I answered, watching nervously as she walked to a small, recessed locker in the righthand wall. “Being helpful might even do me some good. ”

To anyone watching, the woman was acting completely on her own and doing something she wanted to do. In point of fact she was completely under my control and doing what I wanted her to, something I needed badly to have done. If I was going to use Serdin to get me out of there as I intended, I couldn’t very well walk out in the short, torn shirt I was wearing and expect to get very far. I needed clothing and shoes, and with Cataran Olden so close to my size, there wasn’t likely to be anyone better to supply my need. I had made the woman believe she really was sending a package Serdin was supposed to have, and as I watched her put the spare uniform and short boots into a package-pouch I didn’t allow her mind any freedom at all. When she was all through and handed the thing to me with a smile, I took it and then fed her a large jolt of forgetfulness. She had just given me as much help as she would have liked to, but if I’d let her remember it the fearful side of her nature would not have let her enjoy it. I couldn’t recall ever having used forgetfulness before, but now that I had I didn’t know why I hadn’t. It was a lot easier to do than I would have thought possible, and was more the result of my having acted without thinking than a carefully planned-out action.

“Now, what were we just talking about?” she said as she looked at me, the curiosity she would have felt over what I was carrying pushed aside by my mind. “Oh, yes, wishing you luck with Serdin. I certainly do wish you luck, and you’ll have to let me know how you make out.”

“I guarantee you’ll know,” I answered as she walked me to the door and opened it, finding no amusement in my own comment. “And I have a feeling it won’t be long before you do. Thanks for supplying the shoulder I needed. ”

“Any time,” she answered with a real, warm smile, then looked at the Sec who was still waiting for me. “Take her to Serdin’s office now. It’s important that she see him.”

The Sec nodded with uninterested agreement, took my arm as I stepped out into the corridor, then led off away from the remaining lines of waiting women. The end of the corridor had a closed and guarded door that we had to be passed through, which reminded me that that wasn’t the way I’d gotten to that area to begin with. I wondered if it made a difference which way you went, tried to tell myself it did and that I should think about it, but the try was useless. The only thing I could think about was what would happen when I got to Serdin’s office—and what would happen if I failed to make my escape attempt good.

I know I should have paid more attention to what was happening around me, but my thoughts were so full of desperate plans and counterplans and contingency plans that before I knew it a door was being opened in front of me. Serdin sat behind his desk as he had the first time Iii seen him, gray-uniformed, white-haired, light-eyed and absorbed in what he was doing, but not so absorbed that he didn’t take a moment to glance up. Faint surprise flickered through his mind, and then he gestured toward the chair I’d sat in the last time I was there.

“Sit down over there, Terrilian, and I’ll be right with you,” he said with familiar distraction, going immediately back to what he’d been doing. The Sec released my arm and left without asking anything or waiting to be told, an indication of just how sure of himself Serdin was, but there was no reason why the man shouldn’t be sure of himself. Primes could be dangerous but I wasn’t really a Prime, and I could have felt his automatic dismissal of me at twice the distance. Anger began to stir in me at that, the sort of anger that had been so useless until then, but it wasn’t yet time to let it have its way. I moved forward to the chair I’d been told to take and sat, putting my package on the floor by my feet, letting the anger build slowly inside against the time I would need it.

“All right, that should do it for now,” Serdin said after nearly five minutes, closing the folder he’d been working on and putting it on a small stack of others just like it before bringing those eyes up to me. “I’m glad to see you took my advice about coming to talk to me. If there’s something bothering you, I’ll do everything I can to take care of it.”

“The something bothering me is a Sec named Adjin,” I said, not really using the complaint to waste time. I wanted to see for myself how Serdin would take it, which would, in turn, determine how I finally handled him. “The man delivered Kel-Ten’s rings to the First Prime’s apartment, then decided to kill some of the waiting time with me. He hurt me badly, Mr. Serdin, and I want to know what you intend doing to guarantee it never happens again.”

Serdin frowned at what I’d told him, spending no time on trying to pretend he didn’t know I’d been appropriated by Kel-Ten. His mind went annoyed rather than concerned as he reached to his right on the desk, and then his attention centered, showing he was beginning to read something. I decided he’d called up a dot list to his desk screen and was checking it to see exactly who we were talking about, and knew at once when he found the entry he’d been looking for. The annoyance faded quickly and entirely, was replaced just as quickly with the set of emotions that translates to, “Oh, well, now I understand,” and then his attention was shifted back to me.

“You know, you have every right to be proud of yourself,” he said, his faint smile probably meant to show just how proud he was of me. “Not only have you attracted the attention of the First Prime, you’ve also been noticed by one of the highest-rated Class Zeroes this facility has. There hasn’t been another woman able to do that since I’ve been here, a statistic that makes you more than a little special.”

“That’s not my idea of an answer to the question I asked,” I said, feeling how he expected me to puff up and preen from what I’d been told. “I don’t care if that null is the favorite con of the creator of the universe. He hurt me, and I want to hear that it won’t ever happen again.”

“A beautiful woman sometimes has to pay the price of her beauty,” he returned, more annoyed than surprised at my response, his body relaxing back in its chair. “If her looks cause men to lose control of themselves, it’s the fault of those looks, not of the men who respond to her. And let’s not forget that that’s the reason for those looks in the first place, to attract the attention of men. Judged on that basis, your effort is very, very successful. ”

“An effort you’re suddenly interested in responding to yourself,” I said very low, my crackling anger in no way keeping me from feeling the type of curiosity he’d developed. “You aren’t the sort of man who lets beauty influence him, but you’ve begun wondering what it is about me that the others find so compelling. You have no intentions of helping me, only a brand-new desire to help yourself. ”

“Now, now, Terrilian, you mustn’t let the ability for observation you’ve developed over the years turn you bitter,” he said, folding his hands over his middle as that faint smile came back to his face. “Men are always in competition with each other, even when actual challenges never occur, which means what one or two have, others want. I won’t keep you for very long, certainly not long enough to upset your other admirers, and afterward we’ll give you something to make sure none of this upsets you, either. Everyone will be happy, because happy is the way we want all of you.”

“You know, I really am delighted that happy is the way you want me,” I responded, giving him something of my own smile as I realized he still didn’t understand I was awake, despite the heavy hint I’d supplied a moment ago. “Happy is also the way I want me, and I think we ought to get started seeing to it right now. You very much feel that you’d like to take me somewhere, and I agree that you should. I’ll be ready in just a minute or two.”

The faint smile froze on his face, but not specifically because of what I’d said. My mind had flowed into his, taking complete control of it, and although he began struggling almost automatically the struggle didn’t last long. I was making him believe he did want me happy and did want to take me somewhere, and was more than willing to let me do whatever I had to in order to hurry the time until he could do what he had to. The urge for sex was a large part of it, the very urge he’d developed himself now amplified by me, and everything he felt revolved around the desire to make me happy. He watched me slip out of the foolish shirt I wore and begin to get into the uniform and boots I’d brought along, and his anticipation of the delights to come made the passing time sweeter for him.

It didn’t take more than the couple of minutes Iii specified before I was ready, and once I was Serdin stood up from behind his desk and came around to join me where I stood. His light eyes were very bright and the faint smile on his face reflected only a small portion of what he was feeling inside, but we weren’t as ready to go as he thought.

“That female Sec outside needs to be sent back to where she came from,” I told him, mixing the desire to wait with his anticipation, the result causing him to change his mind about touching me. “I’ll stand behind the door while you take care of it.”

He nodded pleasantly because of the strong need for agreement holding him so tight, turned to the door, then took care of getting rid of the one person who would question what was going on. After that he came back to me and simply stared until I felt we’d given her enough time to leave the area, and then I took his arm and told him we were ready to go and get a ground vehicle.

I’d almost forgotten how quickly underlings obey someone with a great deal of power. No one asked why Serdin wanted a ground vehicle, and when he also dismissed the one who would have driven it for him there was some faint surprise in the minds around us, but nothing of suspicion. The man was free to do anything he pleased, and if it pleased him to drive away with a female member of Medical, there was nothing anyone could say about it. I would have been a nervous wreck while Serdin handed me into the vehicle and then walked around to the driver’s seat, but the part of me in charge of calm and cool made sure I wasn’t. It let me smile at the man I rode with while the gates to that part of the complex were slowly opened for us, rather than letting me faint dead away. Fainting would have felt a lot better, but wouldn’t have been quite as useful.

I had Serdin pretend we were heading for the big building I’d first awakened in at the very beginning of that madness, but once the gates were solidly closed behind us had him head for the distant forest instead. The trees and brush had been cleared away from the complex for quite a distance from its walls, and seemed to be given periodic treatments to keep it like that. The major complex we had just left was about a quarter of a mile from the building we were supposedly going to, and clearly took up more space than the tall but single building. As we bounced over the uneven ground I felt giddy from the realization that I’d actually made good on my escape, but then the more practical side of me insisted on stamping all over the delight of the feeling. I’d escaped, all right, but only from the complex. I still had to face the fact that I had, as yet, no way off the planet.

“How do people come and go from this world?” I asked Serdin, still holding his mind tight with mine. “Where do the transports or their transfer slips land?”

“There’s a good-sized port behind the main administrative building,” he answered, gesturing with his head toward the building we were no longer heading for. “It’s carefully walled and guarded, of course, even more carefully than the rest of the complex. It would hardly do to have one of our-guests-come out of it far enough to decide on an unauthorized trip to somewhere else. There aren’t many in the Amalgation who know about this world, and wed like to keep it like that. Can we stop for a while now?”

“We’ll be stopping soon,” I assured him, giving him the urge to believe along with the words, carefully keeping my own frustration and fear to myself. When they found out I was on the loose they would close and seal that port, making sure it was impossible for me to gain access to it. One single null in the right place would do it, one single mind I couldn’t control and I’d never reach a transport let alone get clear away. I felt trapped and walled in, almost as much as I had before getting out of the complex, and to say I didn’t like it wasn’t telling half the story.

“What the hell are you people doing here?” I demanded, trying to keep down the roiling inside me. “Why are you breeding Primes, and why is it so important that no one find out?”

“We’re getting ready to take over the Amalgamation,” he answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that it didn’t seem real, his eyes busy with watching where he was driving. “Right now Central heads the Amalgamation, but only with the agreement and approval of the other member worlds. Once we have enough trained Primes we’ll take over the other worlds, and there won’t be anything they can do to stop us. How effective will a hastily scraped together volunteer army be against men who can feed them terror at a distance? How dangerous will the Kabras, the only professional fighters in the Amalgamation, turn out to be, when our people can intensify their feelings that to fight an equal force of their own is useless, and that any force of ours they face is just like one of their own? The Kabras won’t lift a single weapon, citizen police forces or armies will spend more time running away than standing and fighting, and no leader of any of the worlds will be able to lie about being loyal to us. After we’ve taken over, our Primes will be everywhere, making sure people do as they’re told, making sure that those who harbor the strongest resentments are arrested and dealt with before they can be troublesome. Our regime, once begun, will go on and on in perpetuity, and no one and nothing can stop it.”

The vehicle slid around a little on the rutted ground as the shock I felt transmitted itself to the man who was driving, and although I cut it off quickly that doesn’t mean I stopped feeling it when he did. They were not only going to take over the Almagamation, they were also going to use empaths to do it, to see that everyone was enslaved as completely as only their pet tools now were! The desire to rule was theirs, but me and mine would be the ones who got them that desire! I felt so sickened I put a hand to my mouth, trying to keep the uneven ride from adding so much to the sickness that it erupted out of me, almost finding I couldn’t do it. Those people were crazy, but their craziness would work unless someone discovered a way to stop them. I had to get free and stay that way, and hope that eventually they relaxed enough to let me sneak or force my way into the port.

“When we reach the edge of the forest you can stop the vehicle,” I said after a moment or two of trying to pull myself together, frantically searching for something I could do right then that would help rather than be useless or harmful. “Is there anything out there it would be especially wise to avoid, anything someone even with my mind strength would have trouble handling?”

“Only the Ejects,” he replied, a faint shadow of annoyed disgust crossing his mind when he spoke the word. “They hate everyone and everything connected with the complex, and don’t even care that we rid this entire area of dangerous predators in order to give them more of a chance to survive. They take the babies we leave out and raise them as their own, but start a riot any time we come by to claim the rare Prime baby they manage to produce, or take some of their number to be targets for our Primes. Way back in the beginning we even gave them people to show them how to live in the wild, but even that means nothing to them. They’re simply and basically incapable of feeling gratitude.”

“You expect them to be grateful for being thrown out instead of killed, don’t you?” I asked, not really requesting an answer. That was exactly what he expected, he and the others like him. They wasted nothing, apparently, not even the empaths who weren’t born Primes, turning them out into the wilderness to live or die as they could. Killing them would have been kinder, but if they’d killed them the occasional Prime they produced would not be produced, so they graciously let them live. The Primes in the complex had no idea what was done with their offspring, and in that way everyone was kept happy.

“You’re-hurting me,” a faint, choked protest came, bringing me back to awareness of how erratic our progress had suddenly grown. Serdin’s hands were clamped to the drive wheel, the knuckles white against the pain he felt, his body trembling with the need to keep on as we were going even though his mind was on the verge of being crushed. I was suddenly feeling more enraged than sickened, more furious than frightened, and the strength of my mind was squeezing at the mind I held, wanting very badly to hurt it the way it had caused others to be hurt. I was very much aware of the pain Serdin was in, could see the sweat beading on his face, but felt nothing in the way of guilt even as I stared at him. Yes, I was hurting him, but no, I wasn’t regretting it.

“It’s really too bad I still need you, I said, a part of me wondering why I wasn’t trembling and confused and unsure of myself. My mind-tool of calm was giving me very little help just then, doing no more than waiting against the possibility of need, so both feelings and actions were mine. I was the one giving pain to someone who most often gave it to others, and I realized it might be wise of me to stop-before I began enjoying it too much.

“Since we’re almost to the forest, you might as well stop here,” I said, releasing the mind I held captive to the extent of eliminating the pain the man was feeling. “As soon as I leave the vehicle you’ll turn around and go back, taking it as slow as you can, thinking about nothing but the fun you’ve had and how right you were to spend a little time on experimentation. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he answered in a breathy whisper, and it was a good thing I’d had him stop the vehicle. I was right then feeding him complete physical satisfaction as I’d taken it from the minds of other men at some other time, and he was shuddering in delight with his eyes half closed, the rapture completely in possession of him. I would have preferred giving him something other than pleasure, but the mind clings to memories of pleasure and tries to hold onto them, while an equal measure of agony and pain is forgotten as soon as it can possibly be managed. The longer he remembered what had been done to please him the longer it would take for him to understand what had really been done, and that extra amount of time was what I needed. The last thing I did was force confusion deep into his mind, a confusion that would not be noticed or felt until after he was well out of my area of influence. It would surface again and again in the hours to come, playing havoc with his ability to remember and reason clearly, and that, too, would help me.

I got out of the vehicle and slammed the door, then watched only long enough to be sure my orders were being obeyed before turning and hurrying into the waiting brush. It felt odd being completely clothed again and shod, odd in a way I couldn’t immediately pin down, but I had very little time to waste thinking about it. I broke into a slow run as I went deeper into the forest, changed direction once I thought I was completely concealed from observation, then tried increasing my pace. I didn’t know how to disguise the trail I was leaving, so I had to do something to destroy it as quickly as possible, before they discovered I was gone. That could happen at any time, and then they would be after me.

Panic comes in two varieties, and I would have much preferred being a victim of the first, which is four-fifths terror. It descends on you fast, taking your breath and your muscle control, trying to freeze you where you stand or cripple you in the midst of movement. It’s an emotion that does, very often, generate its own opposition in you once the initial shock is over, helping you to overcome it as soon as possible. The second variety is only half terror or less, which means it comes slowly but firmly over you, creeping up and getting a good, solid hold before you understand completely that it’s there. You find yourself racing along like a mindless animal, wasting strength and breath, almost running into trees in your need to get away from whatever it is that’s coming behind you—or will be coming behind you. It tells you that even if nothing’s behind you now there soon will be, and gives you no time to think, no opportunity to stop and use reason on your problem. Most of the time you don’t even know it’s happening, not until a countershock jars you free of it.

My countershock came when I slammed hard into the ground, facedown among twigs and thin grass and leaves. My knees and palms got the worst of it, but my left ankle also ached a little from the way my left boot had gotten caught on something I hadn’t seen. My breathing was still ragged and I still felt the urge to run without stopping, but having to brush my palms clean and then rub at my ankle meant I also had the opportunity to look around. I hadn’t seen much of what I’d been running through, only a blur of trees and bushes marking my progress in my memory, but it didn’t take long to see it was a damned good thing I’d fallen hard enough to be snapped out of it. Without realizing it Iii been running beside a brook, the sort of shallow little waterway I needed to disguise my trail, and I hadn’t even seen it.

I gave myself a minute to catch my breath, begrudging every second of it but knowing it was necessary, then got to my feet and walked over to the brook. It was fastmoving and shallow, coming up to no more than ankleheight on my boots, and once I stepped down into it found that keeping my balance against the movement of the water was one of the things I had to be careful about. Another was the slick stones the water ran over, not to mention occasional hidden holes, but it had the overwhelming advantage of not showing a single one of my footprints. I moved around a bit to get used to walking in it and convince myself about the lack of visible passage, then turned in the direction opposite to the one I’d been running in and continued on my way.

I suppose I started out congratulating myself on my cleverness over having turned in a new direction, and truthfully it hadn’t been a bad idea. I’d run headlong into the forest as far as I could until the brook had stopped my straight-line progress, and then had chosen a different direction and had simply kept going. Right or left really didn’t matter just then with one way as good as another, but turning back again after entering the water should have confused everyone and anyone trying to follow me. I felt so pleased it took a while before I discovered how cold my feet were growing, courtesy of the brook water I was walking in., My borrowed boots were watertight but uninsulated, ad I hadn’t known before how cold it’s possible to get while still remaining dry.

I found out how cold it’s possible to get, just before I also found what seemed like the best place to leave the brook. I’d walked on for quite a way against the flow of the water, slowly feeling my feet freeze solid, slowly discovering just how much of my strength I’d thrown away in blind panic, and just before I gave in to the urge to sit down right there in the middle of the brook I saw exactly what I needed. Most of the ground beside the water had no more than thin grass, the dirt under it obviously created for the sole purpose of taking footprints and holding them forever with a smirk of laughter. What I finally came to was a wide table of stone that jutted out just a little over the water, stone that looked almost swept clean of dirt by a broom, and that was my way out. I waded over to it, used strict self-control to keep myself from getting down on hands and knees to kiss it, and simply left the friendly brook behind.

I forced myself to walk on a short distance before sitting down near a tree, leaned against it with my back, then concentrated on resting while at the same time getting pain control ready for when my feet would start coming back to life. It had felt as though I’d been walking on wooden feet for quite a while, and the surprising part was that I hadn’t at any time fallen. I closed my eyes as I leaned back against the hard wood of the tree bark, feeling the way my body ached, trying not to think about whoever would be coming after me. I couldn’t afford to believe they would give up the search easily, which meant I had to keep going as long as humanly possible and then add a little more distant to that. How I would find food and shelter I didn’t know, but—

My eyes flew open as I straightened away from the tree, my mind belatedly feeling the presence of other minds, minds that were very close. I’d been too deep inside myself to notice them immediately, too concerned with what I had done and would do next, but the hatred that had suddenly begun welling at me had forced me to notice. My sight confirmed what my mind already knew, that there were ten or twelve men and women standing and staring at me, their approach having been so silent I hadn’t heard anything of it, but vision added shock because of their appearance. They were thin, those people, as though they’d never had a decent meal in their lives, and their hair and beards were long and totally unkempt. What they wore in the way of clothing wasn’t clothing at all, but what seemed to be hides and pelts of various animals, badly made, badly kept, and smelling so foul that I experienced a very strong urge to throw up. The barefoot people themselves were as dirty as what theyd wrapped themselves in, but one fact stood out even more clearly than the stench coming at me in waves: every one of them had an active mind, which meant every one of them was an empath.

“Watcha doin’ here?” one of them suddenly demanded, a man larger than the rest who stepped out in front of those he stood with. “Watcha up to, huh, thinkin’ y’c’n sneak up ’n us? Ain’t got enuffa watcha want whur y’cum frum?”

It actually took me a minute to understand what he was saying, the words were so garbled and the accent so thick, and all the time I had to fight off oceans of hostility and hatred trying to roll over me. As empaths they had no control of their minds at all, no discipline to keep them from projecting what they were feeling, and I had never been exposed to such completely raw emotions. I retreated most of the way behind the thin shield I’d been looking through, trembling in spite of myself, then forced myself to stand and face them. The men of the group were carrying heavy sticks of some kind, almost like long cudgels, and the women were gripping thinner but still nasty-looking versions of their own weapons.

“I’ve run away from those people and I need help,” I said to the man who had spoken, wishing my heart wasn’t making so much noise. “I can’t let them catch me again,

I have to stay free, but I can’t do it alone. I hate them as much as you do, so won’t you help me?”

I’d been trying to keep my words as simple as possible so they would understand, but understanding wasn’t a problem. Most of the group immediately began to mutter, and the man I’d addressed snorted out his disgust and disdain.

“Y’din like it there, so y’run Cus,” he said, looking me up and down with no approval at all. “Whole buncha ya don’ give a damn ’bout us till y’need us, then y’cum lookin’. We ain’t had none a ourn took fer killin’ in a whole long while ’cuz they don’ know we’s here, an’ we ain’t gonna do nothin’ t’ change thet. We’s gonna drive ya a good long ways away, an’ then whin they git ya they still ain’t gonna know whur we’s at. Them others bin mens steada girls, but it don’ make no nevermind. They’s gonna git ya but ain’t gonna git none a ourn.”

“Please, wait a minute, I don’t understand,” I protested as some of them started toward me, finding myself taking an involuntary step back. “The people there don’t ignore you because they want to, but because the ones in charge make them do it! And what do you mean, they’re going to get me like they got the others? If I hide well enough they won’t be able to find me; didn’t the others try to hide?”

“Hidin’ don’ do none a ya no good,” he said with another snort, now close enough to wrap a filthy hand around my arm. “They’s got boxes t’ tell ’em whur y’all’s hidin’, an’ them boxes don’ miss nothin’. Whin they find ya they ain’t gonna find us, that’s fer damn spittin’ sure. We’s gonna run ya far’s we gotta.”

The hand on my arm pulled me away from the tree and shoved me toward the center of the group that had closed in, but my mind was so numb I barely noticed it happening. The people from the complex used tracking devices, which meant there had to be a fix thread or a spot dot somewhere on or in me. I’d never find it soon enough to get rid of it, especially if it was under some part of my skin as they usually were, and I didn’t know what to

“Git outen here!” a woman’s voice shrilled from behind me, and the next instant I screamed at the pain from the sharp blow of a stick across my back. I halfjumped, half-fell forward, trying to keep from being hit again, trying to merge with my mind-tool so that I could drop my shield and protect myself, but there were too many of them. Blows struck at me from all sides, some even landing on my head to make me dizzy, and then they were all screaming and shouting and beating at me with mindless fury. As though from a great distance I noticed that only the women were using their sticks, the men using no more than hands and fists, and then I was running with my arms wrapped around my head, running in an attempt to get away from the pain of those blows. I whimpered as I ran, fear adding to the flame of agony as they kept hitting me over and over, and I couldn’t seem to get away from them. They were running with me, still beating me as they kept up, which made me run even faster. I had to get away from them, had to escape that terrible pain, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t . . .

Just how long a time passed I have no idea, but it was still full daylight out when I again became aware of the forest around me. I was on my knees beside a tree, holding to it and trying to hide myself in it, and it came to me that I hadn’t been unconscious, only separated from all awareness of self. It felt as though I’d been trying to bury myself in the tree for quite some time, and hadn’t managed it because of the utter exhaustion and raging pain I burned in. That didn’t sound exactly right for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it didn’t matter in the least. I knew where I was, knew the people called Ejects were gone without a trace, and knew it was only a matter of time before those from the complex came and captured me again. They would find me no matter how far or how fast I ran, find me easily, and there was nothing I could do to stop it or them. Matter, matter, matter, no matter what it didn’t matter.

I scraped my cheek against the rough bark of the tree, but something inside me refused to allow me to let go. I needed endless strength to lean on, endless gentle caring to help me past the pain, endless love to warm me against the chill starting in the air. Where I was supposed to get those things I didn’t know, but it was almost as though the tree was- connected in some way, reminding me of-something—or someone-no longer there and maybe never there—I didn’t know and I was so confused—

Distantly I was surprised at the tears running down my cheeks, tears from a source other than the flaring pain I felt. If I hadn’t been using pain control I would have been unconscious from the terrible beating I’d been given, the beating that had driven me away from people who were too bitter to give up what little they had for a stranger. I didn’t blame them for that, it wasn’t their fault, but giving things up—and giving people up-there was something about that that brought me tears-tears I didn’t understand—

I froze where I knelt beside the tree, everything forgotten but the sound Iii thought I’d heard all my senses trying to flare out in an attempt to search and pinpoint what it was. Most of my strength was going toward supporting the pain control, the possibility of broken ribs making it more a necessity than a luxury, but when I touched human minds I knew it. Male alone, distant but coming closer, a strong sense of searching and an even stronger sense of confirmed anticipation. Whoever it was knew I was there, knew they would find me very shortly, knew I couldn’t hide from them. They were already there, already on the verge of recapturing me, and although I knew more running would be as useless as what I’d already done, I still used the tree to help me drag myself to my feet. If I just sat there waiting for them I would be helping them, and as long as there was life and awareness left in my body helping them was the last thing I would do.

Standing up made me dizzier than I had been, but I held to the tree until the dizziness went away and then I went stumbling off into the forest. I couldn’t move very fast, couldn’t even walk straight, but I wasn’t going to help them catch me. I waited for the panic to come to add to my lost strength a little, but the panic refused to cooperate. It didn’t come, not even a shadow of it, and I discovered I was muttering curses at it under my breath. Never there when you need it, that’s what a waste panic was, never there, not even nulls there, stupid not sending nulls, why are the trees blurring, the ground getting mushy without any water around, everything going in slow circles, that strange sound in my ears, getting dark fast, too fast, not late enough, not—